In earlier times, bleaching and fixing processes were generally carried out after color development in color development processing but processing with a bleach-fix bath in which bleaching and fixing are accomplished in a single bath is now widely used, especially for print materials, with a view to simplifying processing, economizing on processing baths and rapid processing. However, when the thiosulfates generally used as fixing agents are present along with various oxidizing agents as typified by the aminopolycarboxylic acid iron complexes they are oxidized, sulfur is liberated (vulcanization) and there is a disadvantage in that undesirable material is liable to become attached to the color printing paper and in that color staining is liable to occur. Sulfite ion is generally used as a stabilizing agent to ameliorate these disadvantages but the effect obtained is inadequate. Furthermore, techniques in which aldehyde/bisulfite adducts are used have been proposed in West German Patent Application (OLS) 2,102,713, JP-A-50-51326 and JP-A-48-42733 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application"). The stability of the bleach-fixer is improved by these techniques and the sulfiding time is increased. However, there is a major disadvantage in that there is increased staining of the processed photographic material on ageing. Moreover, during continuous processing the processing liquids (and especially the bleach-fixer components) permeate to a distance of some 0.5 to 1 mm from both of the cut edges of the photographic material, i.e., so-called edge permeation which results in a yellow coloration and this is a serious problem, especially in the case of print materials. It is thought that this is because the free sulfite ion concentration in the bleach-fixer is so low that degradation and washing out of the developing agent by the bleach-fixer is inadequate with the result that staining and edge permeation occurs readily. In rapid processing, where the processing time for the bleach-fix and following processes is not more than 3 minutes, these problems are even more pronounced because the washing out of developer and bleach-fixer components is then even more inadequate.
On the other hand, compounds of formulae (I) and (II) shown below have been disclosed as preservatives for color development baths in, for example, WO87/05434, WO87/06026 and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,801,516 and 4,801,521. A technique for improving aging stability by adding these compounds to thiosulfate containing liquids such as stabilizers for example has been disclosed in JP-A-63-85628. However, a satisfactory effect has not been obtained on applying this technique to bleach-fixers, which have a high concentration of bleaching agent.